Match Moving

First port of call on this magical journey: Match Moving.
So, what the fuck is Match Moving I hear you ask? Good question. Match moving is the process of 3D camera tracking, that is finding fixed points in a live action plate(piece of filed footage) that can be tracked in 3d space in order to create a virtual camera in your production application. Sounds complicated? Not really.
It breaks down like this; In every piece of footage there is a paralax, that is objects closer to the camera move faster and objects further away move slower. You feed a piece of footage into your match moving program, in this case Autodesk Match Mover. The program analyses the footage and finds points to stick too, these are called tracking points. The program will try its hardest to stick to these points, be it a lamp post of tree, something that is static in your footage, although if the footage is moving about violently enough this will need to be rectified by hand.

In this example, you can see the tracking points from the 3d track of this street attaching themselves to fixed points (some..!) to generate a virtual camera for our 3d package.


Once the program has analysed the footage, it is down to you to add a co-ordinates system, that is, tell the program on which axis these points lie and a rough estimate of their distance. The program will the "solve" the shot and create a virtual camera based on the tracking points and the footage fed into it. 


Once the camera has been solved you should end up with something looking a little like this; a virtual camera, exactly copying the movement of its real world counterpart. This will allow you to add geometry to your scene and with some colour correction and a few other tricks get it looking prety good.

That's pretty much the nuts and bolts of match moving. I know all the tech geeks out there will righty be saying that you could quite happily do the same shot with a 2D tracker, but that would defeat the point of looking into matchmoving, that and I couldn't find a 3d Piece of footage...


So, in conclusion here's my animation test into matchmoving. This one is pretty simple, but it's a good place to start. I will be looking into much more complex solves in future containing green screen tracking markers and full 3d solves.

P.S. here's something that has utilised the same technique, that and it's got a break dancing robot which rocks!